


Clint is Allergic to Feels

by Fangirlingmanaged



Series: Even More Angst Nobody Asked For (AKA Bonus Content) [10]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst and Humor, Ceiling Vent Clint Barton, Civil War Fix-It, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Steve Feels, Steve Needs a Hug, i can't believe that's a fucking tag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-26
Updated: 2016-08-26
Packaged: 2018-08-11 02:34:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7872616
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fangirlingmanaged/pseuds/Fangirlingmanaged
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stan Lee didn't get the name that was written on the package wrong</p>
            </blockquote>





	Clint is Allergic to Feels

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to be the comic relief of this thing. it... didn't turn quite like that...  
> but i hope you enjoy!

It’s been about a week since their escape to Wakanda when Clint finds him in one of his funks in their new communal kitchen. He’s sitting with a cup of black coffee, which manages to send a pang through his chest at the memories associated with coffee and late night conversations, and staring down at a blank sheet of paper that refuses to be filled with words. He’s been down in the kitchen for at least three days, hidden away from the others, trying to put down the right words to explain himself. To beg a bit of forgiveness for what he has done, if he’s being honest with himself.

To his left, on the counter, sits a flip phone. It would be innocuous in and of itself, but there are so many connotations associated with it for Steve to not glance at it every five seconds. T’Challa had agreed to his plan with stone-faced silence besides the nod that he had received. It’s been five days, and Steve still doesn’t know if the king agrees with him or not. Still, the phone was his now to do with as he saw fit. It was also equipped with some form of anti-tracking technology that nobody, the king had emphasized, could hack into no matter how smart they thought themselves to be. Steve had given a small smile at the mention of that tidbit of information while wondering how long it would take for _someone_ to dismantle the thing and the make the unthinkable happen.

(in hindsight, he should have known it wouldn’t take much.)

So there he was, having so many words and scenarios pass through his mind while being unable to put them down into paper. He’d wanted to apologize for what they had gone through yet couldn’t find the words to do so. What was he supposed to say, anyway, after what he had made their family go through? Every time he thought he had the words he would realize how ridiculous they really sounded. Now that they were out of the heat of it, after his moment at the precipice of a decision had happened, he could see all his mistakes like the near-sighted view of a pointillism painting.

He would start with, _Dear Tony_ , only to realize how ludicrous that phrase would be for the two of them. How could he say that Tony was dear to him after nearly destroying his heart? and that was just metaphorically speaking because even if Tony didn’t need the reactor imbedded in his chest anymore it was still a symbol. A symbol that, up until then, Steve hadn’t ever thought meant as much to the scientist as the shield did to him.

He would swallow the pain, and then continue with _I want to start by saying how sorry I am,_ only to realize that it would only come out as a lie. He had already had so many chances to prove that he wasn’t really okay with the decisions he’d taken from the moment Ross walked into their lives. He could have signed the accords. He could have brought Bucky in. he could have talked to his team. He could have walked away from the fight. He could have taken Bucky since the beginning and then disappeared. He could have tried talking to T’Challa. He could have dug deeper into who Zemo was. He could have spoken to Tony, candidly as the partners they were supposed to be, and figured out a plan.

He could have taken his misguided, bloody stupid self-righteousness and shoved it up his own ass. He could have realize how utterly hypocritical he had been as he judged Tony for not trusting them, _him_ , while doing the exact same thing. He could have done any of those things, and they would have meant a thousand times more than any words he could write down. They would have meant to _Tony_ , anyway.

So any attempt at writing an apology would always fall short of being perceived as truthful. Tony had always had a knack for mistrust, of everyone really. It had always been painfully clear, from his sounded-joking-but-were-actually-serious _I don’t like to be handed things_ to his constant self-isolation, and all the times he shied away from affection. It was a constant cloud with the man, how he _yearned_ , but never actually acted to get what he wanted. Steve had always known, even when they fought like stubborn kindergarteners pulling each other’s pig-tails, he’d always been acutely aware of Tony’s constant attitude of waiting for the other shoe to drop.

No matter what Steve wrote now, there would always be only one thing painfully clear in Tony’s mind, and that would that it had happened. The other shoe had dropped.

So Steve had been leaning his chin on his fist, near tears though he’d never admit it to anyone, when someone had dropped from the ceiling. Literally, Clint had fallen from one of the grates on the ventilations system overhead. He’d fallen right in front of Steve, belly down, and had knocked the cup of coffee onto his sheet of paper. Well, that went that last attempt.

Steve could do nothing but blink in faint surprise at his teammate.

“Son of a bitch, stupidly flimsy Wakandan metal I thought these assholes _owned_ vibranium,” Clint had groaned to himself and then managed to turn onto his back. He noticed his Captain then, and his cheeks began to turn a ruddy red. “Oh, uh, hi Cap,” he’d coughed and then rubbed the impressive mark on his chin, “didn’t think anyone would be up this late,” he glanced at the clock on the microwave, “or early, I supposed.”

“I couldn’t sleep,” Steve had replied. He still couldn’t decipher why in the hell Clint was in the vents, and he said so.

“Oh, I… well. I like high places?” he’d said, though it sounded more like a question. Steve had said so as well. “When my head gets too full, and I can’t sleep, I like to be high up. It helps me think. Did I ever tell you where I was when Loki showed up?” Steve shook his head. Honestly, at that point, he would have taken any distraction from the tightness in his chest. Clint was good at those. “So I had been assigned to watch over Selvig’s work with the cube, right, but it was so freakin’ boring ‘cause duh who the hell cares about thermonuclear astrophysics and shit except that dude and Thor’s chick, and Tony, I guess since he basically memorized the whole science of it, the freak—“Steve cleared his throat to get him back on topic because the pain in his chest was getting worse every time someone mentioned _him_ and he had been tolerating Clint in order to distract himself from it. “Right, so there I was bored and with too much in my mind, I mean, Laura was home and Coop was so little—anyway, I was there and I discovered this _nook_ high on the ceiling where the ventilation system gave in to the room. It helped me focus, in a way, and it was comforting.” The archer shrugged, then groaned as his abused body protested.

“So you like high places? Have you done this before?” Steve was honestly wary of the answer. After all, Clint could be very quiet when he wanted, and he and Tony had done some really private activities in some public places.

“Of course I have,” he said and then shrugged. “The hellicarrier was full of these small tunnel things where techs would keep everything up to date, and also the ventilation channels. And don’t even get me started on the Tower and the Facility, especially after Tony put up those retrieving vents,” he hummed like he was remembering some very fond memory. Steve’s mind got stuck in one thing, though.

“Did you say—“

“Oh, yeah! So this has happened before. I was fucking around the vets down in the personal floors, not on purpose!” he said quickly when Steve’s eyes widened. “I slid down a vent… anyway, somehow I got down to the labs. I’m telling you, man, Tony might have been onto something when he asked Banner if his secret was a big bag of weed ‘cause that lab smelled funky. Anyway, I was down there, and suddenly my knee caught at the edge of a grate and bam!” the smacking of his hand on the countertop makes Steve jump, “I find myself belly down and then doused in fire extinguisher foam.”

Steve chuckled, and then full on laughs as he imagines a sleepy Tony blinking down at the archer as DUM-E douses him in foam. The memory didn’t hurt as much as he thought it might, and he found his laugh was actually genuine. He was silently grateful that he started this conversation with his teammate, he decided.

“So what were _you_ doing up this late, and what the hell is the flip phone for?” and that sobers Steve up pretty quickly.

“I was trying to write a letter,” Steve had answered quietly.

Clint sat up on the counter, ignoring Steve’s admonishment, and stared at him for a long moment. Steve shifted in his seat, uncomfortable with the scrutiny. Part of him was afraid that Clint would be mad. It was, in a way, because of Tony that he couldn’t be with his wife and children. Though, he figured, he maybe wasn’t as mad as he had been at the beginning in the Raft. It seemed as though it wasn’t only Steve whom had righted his side of the story.

Finally, Clint jumped off the counter. “Okay,” was all he said. Steve stared at him in silence. “I’ll catch some sleep, leave you to it,” and he only waited for Steve’s nod to walk away. On the doorway to the sleeping quarters, he turned around to give Steve a long serious look. “And Cap?” Steve had tried and failed to get them to stop calling him that, “make sure you make that count.”

Then he was gone, and Steve found that the words seemed to flow much easier.

                                                                                      ***

It wouldn’t be until months later that Steve would think about that encounter. He tried not to think about those days too much because they always made him have something he refused to call an anxiety attack though he’d seen Tony have enough of them for him to recognize it. sometimes it was hard to not let the past define him or his relationships, but he was trying.

They were doing a bit of late spring cleaning when he found it. In one of the many cabinets in Tony’s closet, hidden behind a rack of his most used shoes, were the remnants of a box. It had been torn in places, but it was still recognizable. He shook his head at his boyfriend’s tendencies to hoard things due to his “non-existent, Steve, you’re projecting” sentimentality. He was about to throw it away, but the name it was addressed to caught his eye.

A burst of laughter escaped him, and he had to sit down to keep himself from laughing due to his hysterics. “Honey!” he called out to Tony. He was out in the room sorting through the mess that was bedside table.

“Yeah, babe?!” Tony called back. It still made something in Steve’s heart warm to hear the pet names the other man had decided were necessary for their relationship.

“Why is there a package in here addressed to Tony Stank?!” he heard Tony curse and come running into the room. The embarrassment on the other man’s face made him burst out laughing again. Tony launched himself at him to try to take the poor wrecked package, but Steve held firm.

Somehow, they ended up with Tony lying on top of him, which naturally led to them kissing.

From high above them, in the cool vents with their newly re-installed removable barriers, Clint Barton was holding his stomach and being quite unable to stop cackling. The two men below him didn’t even notice.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Tommy Wallach's awesome novel "Thanks for the Trouble" for the art reference.


End file.
